


eggs on rye bread

by rosemary_boy



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining, Aziraphale is a dumbass, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Post-Apocalypse, THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-28 19:19:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19400701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosemary_boy/pseuds/rosemary_boy
Summary: I’ll feed you in the morning, eggs on rye breadBut you’re sleeping on the floorDon’t come to my bedIt’s too soon for you to see me with my wings spread--------------------“I only have the one bed,” he says apologetically. Maybe should have thought of that before inviting the angel over. Definitely should have thought of that before leading him into his bedroom.





	eggs on rye bread

They don’t speak on the bus.

At first, they’re just too tired, too grateful to still be there. Almostgeddon looms behind them, a specter that they can’t quite believe they’ve dodged. All they can do is huddle together as the bus carries them away from Tadfield. Huddle closer and closer, until their hands brush together. The angel looks towards the demon, meets his gaze - soft, pleading, even behind the sunglasses, even on the dark bus - and fits their hands together. The angel’s hand is heavy, warm, a weight that pulls the demon back to Earth, a warmth that wakes him back up. They can’t speak now. They freeze, hold their breath, refuse to let the moment snap and break and shatter like so many others. Six thousand years, and they’ve never held hands; the demon had thought that he’d burst into flames if they ever touched. He’s still not ruled it out as a possibility. There’s a current running from his fingers straight to his heart, which is presently leaping and singing and screaming, “Finally, you stupid bastard!” right in his metaphysical face. He tells it to shut up.

The angel is still looking at him, and the demon has to look away before he burns up, before he crumbles into ash under those steady, green-grey eyes.

\--------------------

Crowley is, ultimately, the first to move; he shifts, just a little, and pulls the cord as they coast into London. Aziraphale starts in his seat and squeezes his hand. Crowley’s brain goes offline, then reboots, and just as he works out that he wants to squeeze back, Aziraphale lets go, rises to his feet when the bus coasts to a stop. As he’s disembarking, he thanks the bus driver, who is shaking his head and trying to figure how to get back on schedule after detouring to fucking Mayfair.

Crowley takes a quick breath and follows the angel off the bus. He flicks a glance at Aziraphale, who looks like he might fall asleep on his feet, right on the sidewalk. As far as Crowley knows, he’s never needed to sleep, never had the inclination to try it; Crowley’s never even seen him look tired.

“C’mon, angel,” he says quietly, and Aziraphale follows him into his building and up the stairs. He fishes a key out of his jacket - not that he needs a key to get in, but it feels like the right thing to do tonight. It feels like the human thing to do. Aziraphale leans against the wall outside his flat, watches him fiddle with the key.

The angel follows him through the maze of dark hallways. The plants rustle as they pass by, curious about the new presence in the flat. Crowley throws a half-hearted glare at them, but there’s no real malice behind it - he’s all malice’d out for the evening. Aziraphale looks back at them, too tired to ask any questions.

Crowley’s bedroom is all sleek lines, dark wood, dull metal. Moonlight pours through the window onto the - oh, right.

“I only have the one bed,” he says apologetically. Maybe should have thought of that before inviting the angel over. Definitely should have thought of that before leading him into his bedroom. “You can take it, though. There should be pajamas in the - well, here,” and he crosses to the dresser, pulls out a tartan pajama set that should somehow fit perfectly, places it neatly on the bed. Aziraphale nods slowly. He opens his mouth, closes it, looking confused. Crowley waits for him to say something, then turns to leave.

Aziraphale catches his hand before he can close the door behind him. “Please, Crowley,” he says softly, and the moonlight is shining off his hair, and Crowley thinks he can see the shadows cast by his wings, still buzzing at the edge of this dimension.

“I’ll be right back, angel.” His voice comes out softer than he expected, and Aziraphale lets go of his hand. He leaves, hides out in his bathroom to change out of his own soot-stained clothes and panic briefly over what to do. There’s no way Aziraphale was asking him to share - no, of course not, talk about presumption, so he drags the sofa cushions back from the living room.

Aziraphale, softer than ever in pale grey plaid, is standing by the bed, like he doesn’t know exactly what to do next. Crowley gestures - “well, go on” - and lies down on the cushions. He curls up under a blanket pulled from thin air, and doesn’t think about the angel getting into his bed. Doesn’t imagine slipping off the cushions and going back to join him. He certainly doesn’t have “ _you go too fast for me, Crowley_ ” on a loop in his head like an answering machine message playing back to an empty apartment.

_“You go too fast for me, Crowley.”_

_“You go too fast for me.”_

_\--------------------_

Aziraphale is still awake. He knows that his body is exhausted, knows that he should let it rest. However, he also knows that Crowley is lying only a few meters away, on a pile of sofa cushions of all things.

What Aziraphale doesn’t know is why Crowley isn’t wrapped in the comically luxurious sheets with him. He’d thought that they’d said everything that needed to be said on the bus, what with the meaningful eye contact and the hand-holding and all. And then, just now, when Crowley had turned to go, and Aziraphale had stopped him - if that wasn’t an invitation, he wasn’t sure what was.

And yet, here he is, alone in an absurdly large bed with the demon he’d saved the world with practically curled at his feet.

He rolls onto one side, then the other. He never quite learned how to sleep, at least not on purpose; usually it just sort of happened. Sometimes, he’d just collapse when he was sitting at his desk after reading straight through the night for two weeks in a row. Sometimes, mostly in the last fifty years or so, he’d end up slumped against a shelf with an empty wine bottle (or three) strewn around the shop and the last whispers of Crowley's cologne hanging in the air after he took off for the night. But he’s yet to ever use the bed in the little flat above his shop, yet to lie down and deliberately fall asleep.

Crowley, on the other hand, is an expert at sleeping, has been almost since day one. He’s probably passed out already, and here’s Aziraphale lying awake over a few moments - fine, almost an hour - of hand-holding on probably the most important day in Earth history since, well, the day they met.

Because he isn’t thinking about Armageddon, or the world that’s been saved, or even the people who saved it. He’s thinking about how soft Crowley’s hand had felt in his, how Crowley’s thumb had caressed his before falling still. He’s thinking about the love he’d felt, the love he’s realizing he’s always felt, pouring out of Crowley. He’d always assumed it was just noise, just background static from the city at large, but there was no static as they drove away from Tadfield. No static, no interference, just 6000 watts of love running up his arm. He’d assumed Crowley could feel the same coming from him, but, now that he thinks about it, demons don’t really sense love, do they?

Aziraphale flips over one last time, presses his face into a ridiculously fluffy pillow, and hears a sharp exhale from the floor, somewhere between his knees and the end of the bed. He’s not asleep, either, then.

Aziraphale isn’t quite sure why he doesn’t get up, doesn’t join Crowley on the floor, doesn’t drag him up to the bed and curl around him, wings draped over both of them as if that will stop Heaven and Hell from crashing into the flat and dragging them off. It feels like the only possible choice, so why on Earth is he still alone in the bed?

The answer, of course, is that his body has finally decided enough is enough, and he's fallen asleep.

\-------------------- 

It would make sense for angels to be early risers. It’s supposed to be virtuous, isn’t it, getting up with the sun and the birds and the jogger moms who clatter down the street pushing their kids in sportsy little buggies. However, Aziraphale never got enough practice sleeping to know when a reasonable wake-up time might be.

Crowley, of course, wakes up with the sun. His windows are actually specially positioned so the sunlight can flood in to warm him up in the mornings, a holdover from being cold-blooded. Even on the floor, he’s picked a spot that’s illuminated by the weak dawn light.

He unfolds himself from the sofa cushions and rolls his neck. The sheer pleasure of a human neck crack is almost worth the absurdity of his body deciding to wake up with a sore neck.

He makes himself look at the angel, still bundled up in dark silk sheets. He makes himself look away.

He collects the sofa cushions and sets his living room back in order. He checks on his plants, whispering petty insults as he mists them, but he’s too aware of the angel sleeping a couple rooms over to be particularly spiteful. The room feels soft, warm, relaxed, plants swaying gently in a nonexistent breeze. He’s not sure if he likes it.

He pads back to the kitchen, bare feet against cool stone floor. Coffee - coffee’s a good idea, right? Tea? He's not even sure if Aziraphale eats breakfast. Sure, the angel likes food, but it’s not like either of them need to eat, and Crowley can’t imagine him waking up and fussing over a stove in the morning. Still, it feels like the right thing to do. Human thing.

He’s got eggs in a pan and bread in a toaster (none of which had been in the flat until about seven minutes ago) when Aziraphale stumbles in. His hair is amazingly fluffy, and his eyes are slow and sleepy, and he’s still wearing the tartan pajamas. He takes in the scene, looking slightly confused.

“Coffee?” Crowley offers quietly, and nods towards a French press on the counter with two cups sitting beside it. Aziraphale smiles, fusses for just a minute with his mug, and Crowley still doesn’t know if he eats breakfast, but at least he got the coffee bit right.

The angel sits at the sleek kitchen table that’s never actually been used before. Crowley can’t stop looking at Aziraphale, except when Aziraphale looks at him, and then he’s suddenly very interested in the eggs, or the coffee, or the back of his spatula.

“Thank you, my dear,” Aziraphale says, and now Crowley is very aware of the fact that he isn’t looking at him, but if he looks at him he’ll probably say something stupid or scare him away or burn the flipping eggs. So he just nods, waves a hand in what he hopes is a nonchalant way, mutters something about “no trouble, no problem, I’d do anything for you, anything you like, if you let me.” Well, definitely the “no trouble” bit.

Eggs on rye bread. It’s not exactly easy to muck up, but Crowley feels like this might be one of the most important things he’s ever done. He knows that offerings to the heavens have been out of style for a bit, but he can’t help the hint of reverence that creeps in as he sets Aziraphale’s plate down.

“Thank you,” Aziraphale says again, and he really needs to stop saying it like that, needs to stop looking at Crowley _like that_ , because he can’t stand this any more.

Aziraphale reaches a hand out, past the fork, past his coffee mug (he took the black one, Crowley had got the white one out for him but he took the black one) and he takes Crowley’s hand and says, “Thank you,” one more time.

Crowley feels those flames licking up his arm again, feels them burning into his brain - should have put his sunglasses on, should have remembered how impossible it is to look at Aziraphale without them (or a bottle and a half, whichever was more convenient). He opens his mouth, but he can’t say anything, can’t manage more than a short inhale. Aziraphale finally shifts his gaze, and for a split second Crowley is relieved, reprieved, but the angel is looking at his mouth now, just like back in the hospital, a couple days ago, when he’d slammed him up against the wall and felt his heartbeat, felt his breath against his neck and realized that of all his bad ideas, all his stupid, self-destuctive ideas, this one was really one for the books.

A couple days ago, Crowley had almost banished an ex-nun to Antarctica because she interrupted them. Now, he can’t stop wishing that someone - anyone - would come and interrupt, because if Aziraphale won’t stop then Crowley’s going to do something very stupid, very, very fast. Crowley doesn’t even realize he’s moving, he hasn’t moved, he’s still in his chair, but Aziraphale’s getting closer -

It’s Aziraphale who’s moving, leaning up, over breakfast, and then he’s kissing him slow and warm and bright, like the sunlight streaming in through the windows.

It’s so warm, but he’s not burning, how is he not burning, he’s flying and he’s so close to the sun.

Crowley closes his eyes and braces for the End. He’d banked on them having more time to prepare for their faceoff with Heaven and Hell, but this might well summon Gabriel or Beelzebub or the Almighty Herself to his doorstep, and at this point he’s not sure he cares. If he’s going out, he’s going to go out in style - that is, with one hand twined in the angel’s curly hair and a celestial tongue down his throat.

“Angel,” he breathes into the space between kisses. He doesn’t really have much else to say, but Aziraphale draws away, waiting expectantly for him to continue. Crowley shakes his head, tightens his grip in Aziraphale’s curls, reaches his other hand to the angel’s cheek.

“Darling,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley’s on fire. “I’d been scared I wouldn’t -” he cuts his sentence short, looking evenly at Crowley over half-forgotten eggs and toast. Crowley feels a little frantic, and he looks back pleadingly; _please finish that sentence, angel, please, I have to know_. “Well, I’d been scared I wouldn’t get the chance,” Aziraphale finishes, and how is Crowley supposed to not kiss him again at that? There’s a twinge of desperation as he presses their lips together again.

Aziraphale stays for a moment, two, three, but he does pull back, slowly, slowly. He reaches back and takes Crowley’s hand from his neck; turns his face to kiss the hand on his cheek before taking that one, too. He rests their hands gently on the table and lets out a short, serious breath. “Crowley, I - we need to talk about today. The prophecy. I think I know what Agnes wanted us to do…”

**Author's Note:**

> Title and inspiration comes from "Psalm 151" which is another song by Ezra Furman. Might just fuck around and write an entire collection based on songs from this album.
> 
> I'm on [tumblr](https://rosemary-boy.tumblr.com) at the same username (but like w/ a dash instead of an underscore)! Come say hi! :-)


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